American Civility

Somewhere just south of the Erie Canal, in a small suburb of Buffalo, where a Starbucks can hardly be found, the American pioneer spirit is alive and thriving. I am not referring to the rugged individualism of exploration and development, nor to the blind risk taking and abiding optimism that we associate with economic gain, although these do exist in small clusters overshadowed by a city where shuttered steel mills and rusting plants fill block after block.

Rather, meet Mother Jacquie. She’s is not a religious Mother, like Mother Theresa, although her faith-based work might justifiably be compared to hers. She is a mother with eight children who makes her living in an habilitation center for young adults with special needs. Between her family and her job, one might think that Jacquie’s days are filled with about as much emotionally taxing endeavors as one person can handle.Not so. You see, Jacquie’s home becomes home to children who, by fate or the errors of their parents, are being dragged on a tumbril toward a slow decapitation of their hope and joy. These are kids of drug addicts, or who are abandoned, or who were condemned by the state to a foster “care” that ends up betraying the loving and nurturing home it was intended to be. When these kids have nowhere else to turn, when the foster system has failed them, when despair and the streets overwhelm them, their custodial agencies turn to Jacquie. She takes them in and loves them, feeds and clothes them, educates and teaches them how to pray, and offers them hope and happiness. They call her mother, she calls them children; and her natural children embrace them, too, as immediately as brothers and sisters embrace a newborn into the family.

When they turn 18, Jacquie sends each child to college. They don’t question her. They just accept her motherly directive: if you want a good life, you must get an education. Infused with boundless optimism and self-confidence, they find a school of their liking, a course of study, and a way to pay for their education. Yes, each of Jacquie’s eight children and the 15 to 20 she estimates were given her by other parents over the years completely pay their way through college.With joy and gratitude they study hard, work hard, and eventually make their way into the world of business, medicine, and law. And they never forget their roots. Jacquie’sson, Dan, is somewhat of a daredevil. He earns well into six figures dangling from and maintaining powerplants and communications towers. Yet, each year he gives one month of his time without pay to help build housing for the poor. “Mom,” hedeclares to Jacquie, “this is how you taught me.” Her daughter, Mandi, a social worker, shares custody of babies of unwed teenage mothers to ensure that both grow on the right path.

This Independence Day, when we are tempted to think our inalienable rights are exclusively personal, and some believe it is government’s duty to assure our happiness, there is a another view. It is Jacquie’s view. It is the view that each of us can contribute to the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of our neighbor, especially those who by the mere accident of lifeare lessfortunate. This is the original American spirit. It is founded in the belief thatbysharing of ourselveswe not only make them more fortunate than those who take too egocentric a view of their freedom, we also fulfill our founders’ vision of a country where self-reliance becomes by free choice alonethe shared dutyof each family and each community.

Is the new President campaigning against Christianity or is he only trying to be inclusive and respectful of other faiths? This is the question that discomfits Americans who had always learned and always believed in the Christian tradition and foundation of our country. To respect all faiths is a laudatory grace; to deny the influence and spirit of a faith practiced by the overwhelming majority of the country one leads is disgraceful.

Consider that in June 2006 Obama said, “Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation – at least, not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.” (FactCheck; YouTube). And in July 2007 he told CBN News, “America is no longer just a Christian nation”.

One might tolerate a candidate’s flirtations with studies in comparative religions, perhaps in recognition of the changing religious profile of the United States of late (largely due to a failed immigration policy), or one might rationalize his reaction to the doctrinaire and often unforgiving positions assumed by the evangelist wing of Christianity which for too long meddled beyond their mission to save souls to encumber the politics of the GOP. But a President’s responsibility requires a supererogation in contrast to a candidate’s ambitions, and a requisite honoring of American history, tradition, and the realities of the super-majority Christianity comprises in our country.

Yet, as President, Obama recently carried his three year message while in Turkey, “ ‘One of the great strengths of the United States’ is that it does not consider itself ‘a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.’ ” (CNN) No, Mr. President, the great strength of the United States is this: because we are a Christian nation we are tolerant of other faiths as long as they are bound by the same ideals and set of values. Contrast our tolerance and acceptance with nations who are openly and predominantly non-Christian, something you might have done, diplomatically, during your European trip to reaffirm Western ideals.

Are we a Christian nation? According to the American Religious Identification Survey 2008, 76% of the population identify themselves as Christian. That is a number that can make even the most self-assured politician salivate. The original colonies and territories of the United States, with the exception of Virginia, were settled by Europeans escaping persecution for Christian practices that were not tolerated in their home country. And in a case before the Supreme Court, Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U.S. 457 (1892), Justice David Brewer declared in a unanimous decision, “These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.” Brewer’s argument is replete with examples that firmly establish the Christian tradition in American political practice.

What about the oft-cited “separation of Church and State” in the First Amendment? Nowhere in the Constitution do these words appear. The exact language is, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, …” Secularist are all too eager to parse the phrase and conveniently leave out the second clause. The original purpose was not to create a God-less society, but precisely the contrary: to protect free expression of faith. Here is Thomas Jefferson, writing to the Danbury Baptists who were concerned about government intrusion into religion:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.

Obama’s solicitous exclamations about America’s non-Christianity that contradict majority American practice and belief, combined with a misreading of the Constitution by the followers of the former Constitutional professor are tragically being manifested in outrageous demands, that violate at least the spirit of the free exercise clause. Before Obama accepted an invitation to speak this month at Georgetown University, a Jesuit school, The White House requested signs and symbols of Jesus Christ be covered up. (NBC News). What is more unconscionable than that request is Georgetown’s acquiescence in it. Perhaps the Catholics who run Georgetown forgot the words of St. Paul to Timothy, “If we deny Him, He will also deny us.”

Denial of our Christian heritage, denial of history, denial of the very values about which the President bragged to his Muslim interlocutors … we have managed to allow a Christian nation—yes Mr. President, it is—to be turned upside-down by a small minority who understand neither faith nor American tradition.